15.7: Reflections- Documenting the Journey
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Examine the value of journaling and reflection
- Experiment with reflection as a daily habit
Consider the journey of learning about entrepreneurship and of becoming an entrepreneur. What new knowledge have you gained about the world of entrepreneurship? What have you learned about your own interests in becoming an entrepreneur? Discovering your interest in specific areas helps to inform the possible entrepreneurial opportunities you might want to pursue and informs you of specific processes and actions where you might excel within an entrepreneurial endeavor. Consider how you can add value to an entrepreneurial team as a team member, or in the capacity of a mentor, consultant, or champion, as you reflect on your own interests, goals, passions and desires.
The Power of Journaling
Reflection supports personal growth through identifying actions that worked well and actions that didn’t work out as well as hoped. A formal reflection journal for capturing daily thoughts, experiences, lessons learned, and other material, can lead to insights and identify patterns in thinking and in behaviors that may be helpful to recognize—both for personal growth and for growth as an entrepreneur.
In daily life, people seldom have the time or training to be mindful of their actions—to be aware of how they interact with others, or how they act in the variety of situations that fill their days. A daily practice of reflection can improve your ability to be mindful throughout the day and to grow through your documented reflections. Being mindful is the action of being in the moment, being aware of surroundings and fully engaged in awareness of the people around us, hearing their communications and understanding the complexity of their messages. Mindfulness moves us out of our reaction to situations from our own personal perspective into a more objective awareness —a bit like viewing your life as though you were watching it as a spectator on the sidelines. This change in perspective moves us away from reacting to situations and toward a clearer, unbiased, and focused understanding of the situation with awareness of the situation’s nuances. As we develop the practice of mindfulness, we become skilled at being aware of our own emotions and patterns, which can make us aware of more options about how we want to respond: Rather than acting in a habitual or reactive manner, we can consider responses before we react. Reflection is the first step in developing this skill.
Take a few minutes to reflect on your life up to this point. Can you identify milestones, significant decision points, and understand why you made these decisions? Forming a daily habit of writing down your thoughts about the day, challenges you faced and how you responded to each, tracking what went well and what didn’t go well is the process of reflection. Over time, you will begin to see patterns in your behaviors. Identifying these patterns or habits provides key insights into how you think, process information, make decisions, and react to decisions. Once you notice these patterns, you have the power to analyze them and decide which are helpful and which are not. The patterns that are not helpful should be removed and replaced with better patterns. You can write down the new patterns that you want to develop as a goal in your daily reflection journal. You can then identify if you’re moving closer to following the new pattern and achieving this goal.
This type of journaling activity might seem like busy work, or you might think that you don’t have time for reflection. If this is how you feel, try following this advice for a couple of weeks and then reconsider, or conduct your own research to find articles that discredit reflection. There is a vast body of research that supports reflection as an important part of self-growth and self-realization. Some documented benefits in these studies include learning from mistakes, discovering new insights and ideas, and increases in reported happiness and satisfaction with life and relationships, increased mindfulness, and increased self-understanding resulting in feeling more power to choose how one interacts with the world—feeling empowered rather than the victim of a situation. 13 , 14 , 15
The Impact of Reflection
Gino and Staats noted four categories that hinder success; “biases cause people to focus too much on success, take action too quickly, try too hard to fit in, and depend too much on experts.” 16 Their point is that the focus on action and success can get in the way of being successful, or of even knowing what success looks like. Gino and Staats’ research identified challenges related to the category of the focus on success. The first three challenges related to the bias toward success include the fear of failure, a fixed mindset, and overreliance on past performance, topics discussed earlier as impediments to the entrepreneurial team’s success and ability to recognize the need for adaptability 17 . Under the concept of a bias toward action, Gino and Staats identified two challenges: exhaustion and lack of reflection. Exhaustion prevents entrepreneurs from contributing at top—or even normal—levels, while a lack of reflection reduced performance by 20 percent, according to their findings. 18 Lack of reflection not only decreased performance but also decreased individual, team, and organizational learning. The U.S. Army uses a system of after-action reviews to reflect on actions, successes, and opportunities for improvement. Another common name for this type of reflection in the business world is post-mortem or lessons learned: the action of reflecting on projects or decisions to identify best practices and areas for improvement. Consider the medical community: What would happen if after every surgery or medical diagnosis, no one analyzed the consequences of the surgery or diagnosis? Might we still be using mercury to kill germs or leeches for bloodletting?
The last two biases identified by Gino and Staats are a bias toward fitting in and a bias toward experts, with two sub-challenges within each area. Under bias toward fitting in, the first challenge is believing you need to conform, and the second challenge is failure to use your strengths. 19 The pressure to conform is present throughout our lives. We are taught to form a line to enter the kindergarten class, the movie theater, or the cafeteria. We are taught to raise our hand to ask or answer a question. This training to conform makes perfect sense in some situations, but we also need to feel comfortable following a different path or approach to living our lives. Again, reflection can help entrepreneurs recognize when they feel pressured to conform through a closer awareness of inner thoughts and feelings. Increased awareness of our thoughts and feelings often leads to more confidence in expressing our thoughts. Following this process also contributes to recognizing your strengths.
In the findings about bias toward experts, the two challenges identified are an overly narrow view of expertise and inadequate frontline involvement. The dependence on experts can create a situation where entrepreneurs assign responsibility for the information and/or decision-making to someone who might have an area of expertise, without realizing that an expert would not be aware of the complexities present within the venture. The expert likely has a pattern or system that has been success for other companies and in other situations, but this advice might not represent the best information or advice for your venture. Involving the frontline team, as well as other sectors of your venture, in discussions and decision-making presents multiple perspectives well worth accessing.
As you build the habit of reflection in your life, and even within your venture, consider how the challenges discussed frame your reflections. Have you made decisions because you wanted to fit in? Do you and your team have a narrow definition of expertise?  Are you involving the right people in discussions?
Documenting Your Journey
As part of your reflection activity, another benefit is to document your journey. If you have identified an opportunity or have started to build your venture, now is the perfect time to keep a journal and document your journey. Each day you face new challenges and exciting ideas that stretch your own learning and growth. Tracking the daily events provides you with a roadmap to use for your next venture, or as a guide to build your knowledge base in moving into a mentor or consultant role. Have you ever asked yourself, why didn’t I write that down? We assume that important and insightful ideas will stick in our minds and that we will readily remember them. But in reality we often forget these key insights and ideas. Through journaling, we can record and reflect on our daily activities and key insights.
This TED Talk on creatives by Adam Grant presents some of the concepts of this chapter, framed around Dr. Grant’s research as a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, on creatives. His book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World , shares more of his findings.
Are there biases and habits that hold you back from being a creative, as defined in this chapter and by Dr. Grant? If so, what methods can you use to break through these biases and habits?


15: Acid-Base Chemistry
Learning Objectives
- Understand the Brønsted and Lewis definitions of acids and bases.
- Identify conjugate acids and bases, and rules for strong & weak acids/bases, in both Brønsted and Lewis acid-base systems.
- Use Pauling’s rules to predict the pK a s of oxoacids.
- Understand the periodic trends of acidic, basic, and amphoteric compounds
- Predict, describe, and rationalize acid/base chemistry in non-aqueous systems, including acidic and basic solvents, aprotic solvents, and molten salts.
- Apply the principles of acid-base chemistry to the design of molecules and Lewis acids with target functions.
- Understand the connection between acid-base chemistry and the stabilization of oxidation states.
- Predict favorable and stable compounds using hard-soft acid-base (HSAB) theory.
- Understand the applications of the ECW model.
Acid-base reactions form the basis of the most common kinds of equilibrium problems which you will encounter in almost any application of chemistry. There are three major classifications of acids and bases: (1) The Arrhenius definition states that an acid produces H + in solution and a base produces OH - and the (2) Brønsted-Lowry and (3) Lewis definitions of acids and bases. Of particular importance in inorganic chemistry is the "hard and soft (Lewis) acids and bases" (HSAB) theory that is widely used for explaining stability of compounds, reaction mechanisms, and reaction pathways.
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- 15.2: Brønsted and Lewis Acids and Bases
- There are three major classifications of substances known as acids or bases. The Arrhenius definition states that an acid produces H+ in solution and a base produces OH-. This theory was developed by Svante Arrhenius in 1883. Later, two more sophisticated and general theories were proposed. These are the Brønsted-Lowry and the Lewis definitions of acids and bases.
-
- 15.3: Hard and Soft Acids and Bases
- Lewis acids and bases can be classified by designating them as hard or soft. "Hard" acids and bases have a high charge (positive for acids, negative for bases) to ionic radius ratio along with higher oxidation states. Hard acids are not very polarizable and have high charge densities. In contact, "Soft" acids or bases have a low charge to radius ratio, with low oxidation states. They are normally larger ions that are polarizable.


13.6.5: Chapter Test
A person’s length from their belly button to the floor is 3 ft 8 in, assuming the ratio is golden. What is the person’s approximate height rounded to the nearest inch?
The leaves on an invasive weed mirror the Fibonacci sequence. If a set of leaves on the plant contains 13 leaves, how many leaves would be found on the previous smaller set of leaves?
The 14th term of the Fibonacci sequence is 377 and the 15th term is 610. What is the 13th term of the sequence?
A fence has dimensions of 40 in by 25 in. Calculate the ratio of the sides rounded to the nearest tenth and determine if the size approximates a golden rectangle.
An average toilet uses 5 gal of water per flush. A high-efficiency toilet uses about 1.25 gal per flush. How much water would a dorm save in an academic year (32 weeks) if the toilet was flushed 22 times a day?
When washing dishes, leaving the faucet running utilizes about 15 gal every 5 minutes, whereas filling the sink and turning the faucet off except to rinse the dishes uses about 5 gal for washing a dishpan-sized load of dishes. How much water is saved by not leaving the faucet running if it takes 10 minutes to wash a dishpan-sized load of dishes each day for a week?
How long would it take for a 75 W light bulb to consume 1 kW of power? Round your answer to the nearest hour.
A phone charger uses about 20 W. How many kilowatt-hours are needed to use the charger during a month if the charger is used for an average of 1.5 hours a day?
A pharmacy has a 1 L bottle of 0.9% solution of sodium chloride. How many grams of sodium chloride are contained in the bottle?
A prescription calls for a patient to receive 5.1 mg of a drug to be taken in oral form. If the pills are available in 1.7 mg, how many pills will the patient need daily?
A prescription calls for a patient to receive 7 mg daily of a drug to be taken daily for 7 days. If the pills are available in 1.75 mg, how many pills are needed to fill the prescription?
A patient is prescribed 3.8 mg/kg of a drug to be delivered daily intramuscularly, divided into two doses. If the patient weighs 20 kg, how many milligrams of the drug are needed for each dose?
Select the most representative decibel value for a college classroom with students working in groups: 10 dB, 30 dB, 50 dB.
What is typically the top frequency that adults over 20 can hear: 17 Hz, 170 Hz, 1,700 Hz, 17,000 Hz?
What note is three whole steps down from F # ?
Given that the approximate frequency of \(\mathrm{C}_4{ }^{\#}=277 \mathrm{~Hz}\), what is the approximate frequency of \(\mathrm{C}_2{ }^{\#}\) rounded to the nearest whole number?
For the following exercises, compute how many games would be played in the style of tournament and number of teams given in each question. Assume all tournaments are single round-robin or single-elimination.
How many games would be played with 22 teams using a round-robin tournament?
How many games would be played with 7 teams using a round-robin tournament?
How many games would be played with 8 teams using a single-elimination tournament?
How many games would be played with 17 teams using a single-elimination tournament?


16.5: Potential, Free Energy, and Equilibrium
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Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain the relations between potential, free energy change, and equilibrium constants
- Perform calculations involving the relations between cell potentials, free energy changes, and equilibrium
- Use the Nernst equation to determine cell potentials under nonstandard conditions
So far in this chapter, the relationship between the cell potential and reaction spontaneity has been described, suggesting a link to the free energy change for the reaction (see chapter on thermodynamics). The interpretation of potentials as measures of oxidant strength was presented, bringing to mind similar measures of acid-base strength as reflected in equilibrium constants (see the chapter on acid-base equilibria). This section provides a summary of the relationships between potential and the related thermodynamic properties ΔG and K.
E° and ΔG°
The standard free energy change of a process, \(ΔG^°\), was defined in a previous chapter as the maximum work that could be performed by a system, \(w_{max}\). In the case of a redox reaction taking place within a galvanic cell under standard state conditions, essentially all the work is associated with transferring the electrons from reductant-to-oxidant, \(w_{elec}\):
\[\Delta G^{\circ}=w_{\max }=w_{\text {elec }} \nonumber \]
The work associated with transferring electrons is determined by the total amount of charge (coulombs) transferred and the cell potential:
\[\Delta G^{\circ}=w_{\text {elec }}=-n F E_{\text {cell }}^{\circ} \nonumber \]
where \(n\) is the number of moles of electrons transferred, \(F\) is Faraday’s constant , and \(E^°_{cell}\) is the standard cell potential. The relation between free energy change and standard cell potential confirms the sign conventions and spontaneity criteria previously discussed for both of these properties: spontaneous redox reactions exhibit positive potentials and negative free energy changes.
E° and K
Combining a previously derived relation between ΔG° and K (see the chapter on thermodynamics) and the equation above relating ΔG° and E ° cell yields the following:
\[\Delta G^{\circ}=-R T \ln K=-n F E_{\text {cell }}^{\circ} \label{eq1} \]
with
\[E_{\text {coll }}^{\circ}=\left(\frac{R T}{n F}\right) \ln K \nonumber \]
This equation indicates redox reactions with large (positive) standard cell potentials will proceed far towards completion, reaching equilibrium when the majority of reactant has been converted to product. A summary of the relations between E °, Δ G ° and K is depicted in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\), and a table correlating reaction spontaneity to values of these properties is provided in Table \(\PageIndex{1}\).
| K | Δ G ° | E ° cell | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| > 1 | < 0 | > 0 |
Reaction is spontaneous under standard conditions Products more abundant at equilibrium |
| < 1 | > 0 | < 0 |
Reaction is non-spontaneous under standard conditions Reactants more abundant at equilibrium |
| = 1 | = 0 | = 0 |
Reaction is at equilibrium under standard conditions Reactants and products equally abundant |
Example \(\PageIndex{1}\): Equilibrium Constants, Standard Cell Potentials, and Standard Free Energy Changes
Use data from Appendix L to calculate the standard cell potential, standard free energy change, and equilibrium constant for the following reaction at 25 °C. Comment on the spontaneity of the forward reaction and the composition of an equilibrium mixture of reactants and products.
\[\ce{2 Ag^{+}(aq) + Fe(s) <=> 2 Ag(s) + Fe^{2+}(aq)} \nonumber \]
Solution
The reaction involves an oxidation-reduction reaction, so the standard cell potential can be calculated using the data in Appendix L.
\[\begin{align*}
& \text { anode: } \quad && \ce{Fe(s) -> Fe^{2+}(aq) + 2 e^{-}} &&E^o_{\ce{Fe^{2+}/Fe}} =-0.447\,\text{V}\\[4pt]
& \text {cathode: } \quad && \ce{2 \times (Ag^{+}(aq) + e^{-} -> Ag(s))} &&E^o_{\ce{Ag^{+}/Ag}} = +0.7996\,\text{V}\\[4pt]
\hline &\text { cell: } \quad && \ce{Fe(s) + 2Ag^{+}(aq) -> Fe^{2+}(aq) + 2Ag(s)} && E^o_{\text {cell }} = +1.2247\,\text{V}
\end{align*} \nonumber \]
with
\[E_{\text {cell }}^{\circ}=E_{\text {cathode }}^{\circ}-E_{\text {anode }}^{\circ}= E^o_{\ce{Fe^{2+}/Fe}} - E^o_{\ce{Ag^{+}/Ag}} = +1.2247\,\text{V} \nonumber \]
With \(n = 2\), the equilibrium constant is then
\[\begin{aligned}
E_{\text {cell }}^{\circ} &=\frac{0.0592 V }{n} \log K \\[4pt]
K&=10^{n \times E_{\text {cal }}^o / 0.0592 V } \\[4pt]
&=10^{2 \times 1.247 V / 0.0592 V } \\[4pt]
&=10^{42.128} \\[4pt]
&=1.3 \times 10^{42}
\end{aligned} \nonumber \]
The standard free energy is then Equation \ref{eq1}
\[\begin{aligned}
& \Delta G^{\circ}=-n F E_{\text {cell }}^{\circ} \\
& =-2 \times 96,485 \frac{ C }{ mol } \times 1.247 \frac{ J }{ C }=-240.6 \frac{ kJ }{ mol }
\end{aligned} \nonumber \]
The reaction is spontaneous, as indicated by a negative free energy change and a positive cell potential. The K value is very large, indicating the reaction proceeds to near completion to yield an equilibrium mixture containing mostly products.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)
What is the standard free energy change and the equilibrium constant for the following reaction at room temperature? Is the reaction spontaneous?
\[\ce{Sn(s) + 2 Cu^{2+}(aq) <=> Sn^{2+}(aq) + 2 Cu^{+}(aq)} \nonumber \]
- Answer
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Spontaneous
\(n = 2\)
\(E_{\text {cell }}^{\circ}=+0.291 V\)
\([\Delta G^{\circ}=-56.2 \frac{ kJ }{ mol }\)
K = 6.8 10 9 .
Potentials at Nonstandard Conditions: The Nernst Equation
Most of the redox processes that interest science and society do not occur under standard state conditions, and so the potentials of these systems under nonstandard conditions are a property worthy of attention. Having established the relationship between potential and free energy change in this section, the previously discussed relation between free energy change and reaction mixture composition can be used for this purpose.
\[\Delta G=\Delta G^{\circ}+R T \ln Q \nonumber \]
Notice the reaction quotient, Q , appears in this equation, making the free energy change dependent upon the composition of the reaction mixture. Substituting the equation relating free energy change to cell potential yields the Nernst equatio n :
\[\begin{align*}
-n F E_{\text {cell }}&=-n F E_{\text {cell }}^{\circ}+R T \ln Q \\[4pt]
E_{\text {cell }}&=E_{\text {cell }}^{\circ}-\frac{R T}{n F} \ln Q
\end{align*} \nonumber \]
This equation describes how the potential of a redox system (such as a galvanic cell) varies from its standard state value, specifically, showing it to be a function of the number of electrons transferred, n , the temperature, T , and the reaction mixture composition as reflected in Q . A convenient form of the Nernst equation for most work is one in which values for the fundamental constants (R and F) and standard temperature (298) K), along with a factor converting from natural to base-10 logarithms, have been included:
\[E_{\text {cell }}=E_{\text {cell }}^{\circ}-\frac{0.0592 V }{n} \log Q \label{Nernst at room temperature} \]
Example \(\PageIndex{2}\): Predicting Redox Spontaneity Under Nonstandard Conditions
Use the Nernst equation to predict the spontaneity of the redox reaction shown below at room temperature.
\[\ce{Co(s)} + \ce{Fe^{2+}} \text{(aq, 1.94 M)} \longrightarrow \ce{Co^{2+}}\text{(aq, 0.15 M)} + \ce{Fe (s)} \nonumber \]
Solution
Collecting information from Appendix L and the problem,
\[\begin{align*}
& \text { anode: } \quad && \ce{Co(s) -> Co^{2+}(aq) + 2 e^{-}} &&E^o_{\ce{Co^{2+}/Co}} =-0.28\,\text{V}\\[4pt]
& \text {cathode: } \quad && \ce{Fe^{2+}(aq) + 2 e^{-} -> Fe(s)} &&E^o_{\ce{Fe^{+}/Fe}} = -0.447\,\text{V}\\[4pt]
\hline &\text { cell: } \quad && \ce{Co(s) + Fe^{2+}(Aq) -> Fe(s) + Co^{2+}(aq)} && E^o_{\text {cell }} = -0.17\,\text{V}
\end{align*} \nonumber \]
with
\[E_{\text {cell }}^{\circ}=E_{\text {cathode }}^{\circ}-E_{\text {anode }}^{\circ}=-0.447 V -(-0.28 V )=-0.17 V \nonumber \]
Notice the negative value of the standard cell potential indicates the process is not spontaneous under standard conditions. Substitution of the Nernst equation terms for the nonstandard conditions requires calculating the reaction quotient \(Q\)
\[Q =\frac{\left[\ce{Co^{2+}}\right]}{\left[\ce{Fe^{2+}}\right]}=\dfrac{0.15 M}{1.94 M}=0.077 \nonumber \]
them \(Q\) and \(n\) are substituted into Equation \red{Nernst at room temperature}
\[\begin{aligned}
E_{\text {cell }} & =E_{\text {cell }}^{\circ}-\frac{0.0592 \,\text{V} }{n} \log Q \\[4pt]
& =-0.17 \,\text{V} -\frac{0.0592 \,\text{V} }{2} \log 0.077 \\[4pt]
& =-0.17 \,\text{V} +0.033 \,\text{V} \\[4pt]
&=-0.14\,\text{V}
\end{aligned} \nonumber \]
The cell potential remains negative (slightly) under the specified conditions, and so the reaction remains nonspontaneous.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{2}\)
For the cell schematic below at room temperature, identify values for n and Q , and calculate the cell potential, E cell .
\[\ce{Al(s)} | \ce{Al^{3+}}\text{(aq, 0.15 M)} | \ce{Cu^{2+}}\text{(aq, 0.025 M)} | \ce{Cu(s)} \nonumber \]
- Answer
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n = 6; Q = 1440; E cell = +1.97 V, spontaneous.
A concentration cell is constructed by connecting two nearly identical half-cells, each based on the same half-reaction and using the same electrode, varying only in the concentration of one redox species. The potential of a concentration cell, therefore, is determined only by the difference in concentration of the chosen redox species. The example problem below illustrates the use of the Nernst equation in calculations involving concentration cells.
Example \(\PageIndex{3}\): Concentration Cells
What is the cell potential of the concentration cell operating at room temperature described by
\[\ce{Zn(s)} | \ce{Zn^{2+}}\text{(aq, 0.10 M)} | \ce{Zn^{2+}} \text{(aq, 0.50 M)} | \ce{Zn(s)} \nonumber \]
Solution
From the information given:
\[\begin{align*}
& \text { anode: } \quad && \ce{Zn(s) -> Zn^{2+}}\text{(aq, 0.10 M)} + \ce{2 e^{-}} &&E^o_{\ce{Co^{2+}/Co}} =-0.7618\,\text{V}\\[4pt]
& \text {cathode: } \quad && \ce{Zn^{2+}}\text{(aq, 0.50 M)} + \ce{2 e^{-} -> Zn(s)} &&E^o_{\ce{Fe^{+}/Fe}} = -0,7618\,\text{V}\\[4pt]
\hline &\text { cell: } \quad && \ce{\cancel{Zn(s)}} + \ce{Zn^{2+}} \text{(aq, 0.50 M)} \ce{-> Zn^{2+}}\text{(aq, 0.10 M)} + \cancel{\ce{Zn(s)}} && E^o_{\text {cell }} = 0\,\text{V}
\end{align*} \nonumber \]
Substituting into the Nernst equation (Equation \ref{Nernst at room temperature}),
\[E_{\text {cell }}=0.000\,\text{V} -\frac{0.0592\,\text{V} }{2} \log \dfrac{0.10}{0.50} = +0.021\, \text{V} \nonumber \]
The positive value for cell potential indicates the overall cell reaction (see above) is spontaneous. This spontaneous reaction is one in which the zinc ion concentration in the cathode falls (it is reduced to elemental zinc) while that in the anode rises (it is produced by oxidation of the zinc anode). A greater driving force for zinc reduction is present in the cathode, where the zinc(II) ion concentration is greater ( E cathode > E anode ).
Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)
The concentration cell above was allowed to operate until the cell reaction reached equilibrium at room temperature. What are the cell potential and the concentrations of zinc(II) in each half-cell for the cell now?
- Answer
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E cell = 0.000 V; [Zn 2 + ] cathode = [Zn 2 + ] anode = 0.30 M


5.25: Reading- Corporate Social Responsibility
So far we have focused on ethical dilemmas in terms of risk. If a company acts unethically, it risks damaging its reputation and its customers’ trust—worse, it can face lawsuits and criminal prosecution. In this section we’ll discuss one of the ways in which companies attempt to get out in front of such risks by taking a proactive stance on ethics, instead. As you saw with Tesla, companies that place “doing the right thing” at the center of their corporate mission and strategy often see a competitive advantage. Increasingly, they’re finding that good corporate citizenship not only benefits customers and communities but is good business, too.
Corporate social responsibility is the ethical behavior of a company toward society. It means acting responsibly toward the stakeholders—not just the shareholders—who have a legitimate interest in the business.
Shareholders own a portion or “share” of a business. Stakeholders do not own the business, but they have some stake or interest in it because they are affected by the business’s strategies and tactics. Examples of stakeholders are employees, suppliers, business partners, and the community in which the business operates. [1]

Xeros Supports Employee Volunteerism
Xerox is one of many companies that creates opportunities for its employees to contribute to their local communities. In 1974 Xerox launched the Xerox Community Involvement Program , which supports employee involvement in community-focused causes. Since that time more than half a million Xerox employees have participated in the program. , as the name suggests, . In its most current reporting on the impact of the program Xerox has announced spending $1.3 million for 13,000 of its employees to participate in 800 community projects. Xerox benefits from the program through community recognition, but also in supporting its employees make contributions that are important to them increasing their loyalty to their employer. [2]
Anheuser-Busch Wants Customers to Drink Responsibly
In January 2014, Anheuser-Busch ran a Super Bowl ad featuring a cute puppy and the famous Budweiser Clydesdale horses. The ad plays on romance and nostalgia to remind viewers of the brand’s history (and to sell more beer). View the Budweiser Clydesdale 2014 Super Bowl commercial here .
In September 2014, the company brought back the puppy, this time to promote responsible drinking:
On its Web site, Anheiser-Busch lists a number of programs it has launched to reduce drunk driving. These are marketing programs that were developed to reduce the risk for consumers using the company’s products.
Anheuser-Busch is opposed to drunk driving and we believe it is 100 percent preventable. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, drunk-driving fatalities have decreased 53 percent since 1982 to record lows, but we recognize there is still work to be done. As part of our effort to prevent drunk driving, we have key initiatives like the Budweiser Designate a Driver campaign and Bud Light safe ride home programs, including Bud Light Alert Cab and Bud Light Tow to Go.
The company is actively promoting safety for its customers and their communities.
Target Invests in Communities
Target places an emphasis on being a “good corporate citizen” in the communities it serves. Each year the company publishes a corporate responsibility report that shares its goals and progress in a number of areas including the environment, team member well-being, education, and volunteerism.
Target shows that it is committed to protecting the environment by increasing the number of organic foods it offers and by putting in place measures to reduce waste and greenhouse gasses.
The company also makes significant contributions to education by paying for employees’ education, and by contributing to schools in its local communities. In 2014 Target donated $31,722,837 to more than 84,000 schools in all fifty states and the District of Columbia.
Haagen-Dazs Cares about Its Tiniest Suppliers
Recently, the ice-cream company Haagen-Daz initiated a campaign to raise awareness about the threats to honey bees, which are rapidly disappearing and are vital to the global food chain (and many of the ingredients in flavored ice cream). The company started a honeybee microsite and is donating a portion of the proceeds from its honeybee brand to bee research. In November 2014, it raised an additional $7,000 for research during a two-day Twitter campaign (#HelpHoneyBees hashtag). [3]
- www.wbcsd.org/work-program/business-role/previous-work/corporate-social-responsibility.aspx ↵
- http://www.xerox.com/corporate-citizenship/2014/community-involvement/volunteer-programs/enus.html ↵
- http://www.socialbrite.org/2010/04/22/4-examples-of-corporate-social-responsibility-done-right/ ↵
Contributors and Attributions
- Corporate Social Responsibility. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
- Sheep and Lambs. Authored by : Jessica The Hun Reeder. Located at : www.flickr.com/photos/jessicareeder/3495166111/. License : CC BY: Attribution
- Honey Bee (Apis mellifera Linnaeus). Authored by : Jim, the Photographer. Located at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/jcapaldi/6162898675/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
- Budweiser Clydesdale Puppy Love Super Bowl 2014 Commercial. Provided by : Clevver News. Located at : https://youtu.be/7p_3lITiK_Q . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube license
- Someone Waits For You At Home, DON'T DRINK & DRIVE | Budweiser Ads. Provided by : adswithme.com. Located at : https://youtu.be/56b09ZyLaWk . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube license


9.14: Introduction to Influences on Organizational Culture
What you’ll learn to do: identify the main influences on organizational culture and explain how culture is maintained
Where does organizational culture come from? How is it maintained? How can you recognize it when you see it? In this section, we’ll investigate the sources of culture in an organization, as well as the methods for maintaining it. And we’ll talk about how to spot the signs of an organization’s culture even when you’re an outsider looking in.
Contributors and Attributions
CC licensed content, Original
- Introduction to Influences on Organizational Culture. Authored by : Lisa Jo Rudy and Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution


6.19: Discrete Random Variables (4 of 5)
Learning Objectives
- Use probability distributions for discrete and continuous random variables to estimate probabilities and identify unusual events.
Standard Deviation for a Discrete Random Variable
The mean of a discrete random variable gives us a measure of the long-run average but it gives us no information at all about how much variability to expect. For example, earlier we found that the average cafeteria wait time at Rushmore Community College was 14 minutes. Put in terms of our random variable, this means over the long run, if we continued to keep track of wait times for students entering the cafeteria, their times would average 14 minutes. Some students would get their food in less than 14 minutes, and some would have to wait longer.
Is that all we need to know? Suppose on the one hand the average time was 14 minutes, but we knew that it was most likely that times would range from 8 to 20 minutes. Compare that to a situation where again the average time was 14 minutes, but it was most likely that times would range only from 13 to 15 minutes. That would give us a different picture of what the problem at the cafeteria might be. What we need is a measure of how much variability to expect in a random variable X over the long run. The standard deviation is that measure.
Just as we need both the mean and standard deviation to get a full picture of the shape of a data set, we need both the mean and standard deviation of a random variable to understand its likely long-term behavior.
In Summarizing Data Graphically and Numerically , we used the following formula to compute the standard deviation of a data set.
As you may recall, the most important part of this formula is the term inside the square root, which we call the average of the squares of the deviations from the mean .
As we will see, the formula for the standard deviation for a discrete random variable has a lot in common with this formula.
Here is the formula for the standard deviation of a discrete random variable. Note that represents the probability of x , where x is a value of the random variable X . And again stands for the mean of X .
Again, we focus on the term inside the square root:
The term here represents the deviation of each value of the random variable X from the mean , just as the term represents the deviation of each observation of the data set from the mean .
In both cases, we proceed to sum the squares of these deviations. In the case of a data set, we divide by n − 1 to find the average squared deviation. However, in the case of a discrete random variable, we again use a weighted average. Why? Because we don’t want to give undue weight to values of X that are unlikely to occur. So those values of X , even if far from the mean , will not contribute much to the standard deviation if their probability is low. On the other hand, values of X with large probabilities will count more in our calculation of the standard deviation of X .
Example
Cafeteria Wait Times
Let’s revisit the problem about wait times in the cafeteria at Rushmore Community College. Recall the following probability distribution.
| X = Time (minutes) | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 |
| P ( X ) | 0.15 | 0.26 | 0.31 | 0.20 | 0.08 |
On the previous page, we found that the average wait time is 14 minutes. Now we will compute the standard deviation of wait times and think a bit about what it tells us.
We start by computing the squared deviations from the mean and weighting them by the probability. For the first value of X , we have
Performing the same operation on the next three values of X will give us
The next step of the formula is to add up the weighted square deviations from the mean, as follows:
Recall that in Summarizing Data Graphically and Numerically we used the standard deviation of a quantitative data set to give a range of typical values. This range of typical values was formed by blocking off an interval 1 standard deviation to the right and left of the mean. In other words, the range of typical values was . Exactly the same thing can be done in the current context of random variables.
Contributors and Attributions
- Concepts in Statistics. Provided by : Open Learning Initiative. Located at : http://oli.cmu.edu . License : CC BY: Attribution


3.2: Architecture support from Low level to High level languages
Introduction
This section introduces learners to the various supports offered by programming languages starting with the low-level to the high level programming languages.
Activity Details
Architecture support from low level to high level languages is in the following ways;
Abstraction in software design;
1. Assemble-level abstraction
A programmer who writes directly with the raw machine instruction set. Expressing the program in terms of instructions, addresses, registers, bytes and words
2. High-level languages
Allows the programmer to think in terms of abstractions that are above the machine level. The programmer may not even know on which machine the program will ultimately run. The RISC philosophy focusing instruction set design on flexible primitive operations from which the complier can build its high level operations
3. Data types
a) ARM support for characters
For handling characters is the unsigned byte load and store instruction
b) ANSI (American National Standards Institute) C basic data types
Defines the following basic data types –
-
Signedandunsignedcharactersofatleasteightbits–Signedand unsigned short integers of at least 16 bits – Signed and unsigned integers of at least 16 bits – Signed and unsigned long integers of at least 32 bits – Floating-point, double and long double floating-point numbers – Enumerated types – Bit fields (sets of Boolean variables).
-
The ARM C compiler adopts the minimum sizes for each of these types
-
The standard integer uses 32-bit values
c) ANCI C derived data types
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Defines derived data types – Arrays, Functions, Structures, Pointers, Unions
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ARM pointers are 32 bits long and resemble unsigned integers
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The ARM C compiler aligns characters on byte boundaries, short integers at even addresses and all other types on word boundaries
d) ARM architectural support for C data types
-
Provides native support for signed and unsigned 32-bit integers and for unsigned bytes, covering the C integer, long integer and unsigned character types
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For arrays and structures: base plus scaled index addressing
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Current versions of the ARM include signed byte and signed and unsigned 16-bit loads and stores, providing some native support for short integer and signed character types
4. Expressions
a) Register use
- The key to the efficient evaluation of a complex expression is to get the required values into the registers in the right order and to ensure that frequently used values are normally resident in registers
- Optimizing this trade-off between the number of values that can be held in registers and the number of registers remaining is a major task for the complier
b) ARM support
- The 3-address instruction format used by the ARM gives the compiler the maximum flexibility
- Thumb instructions (generally 2-address) – restricts the compiler’s freedom to some extent – smaller number of general registers also makes its job harder
c) Accessing operands
- A procedure will normally work with operands that are presented in one of the following ways, and can be accessed as indicated as an argument passed through a register – The value is already in a register, so no further work is necessary as a argument passed on the stack – Stack pointer (r13) relative addressing with an immediate offset known at compile-time allows the operand to be collected with a single LDR
- As a constant in the procedure’s literal pool – PC-relative addressing, again with an immediate offset known at compile-time, gives access with a single LDR
-
As a local variable – Local variables are allocated space on the stack and are accessed by
- a stack pointer relative LDR
- As a global variable – Global (and static) variables are allocated space in the static area and are accessed by static base (is usually in r9) relative addressing
d) Pointer arithmetic
- Arithmetic on pointers depends on the size of the data types that the pointers are pointing to
- If a variable is used as an offset it must be scaled at run-time
- If p is held in r0 and i in r1, the change top may be compiled as: ADD r0, r0, r1, LSL #2 ; scale r1 to int
(e) Arrays
- The declaration: int a[10]; – a reference to a[i] is equivalent to the pointer-plus-offset form *(a+i)
Conclusion
The section lists several supports that can be got by using the various programming level operations. This can include abstraction, pointer arithmetic, arrays etc.
Assessment
1. Explain the following supports as obtainable in application of the various programming levels
-
Abstraction; is a technique for managing complexity of computer systems. It works by establishing a level of complexity on which a person interacts with the system, suppressing the more complex details below the current level.
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Pointer arithmetic: is another way to traverse through an array.
2. Describe Low-level programming language; is a programming language that provides little or no abstraction from a computer’s instruction set architecture—commands or functions in the language map closely to processor instructions. it refers to refers to either machine code or assembly language. The word “low” refers to the small or nonexistent amount of abstraction between the language and machine language; because of this, low-level languages are sometimes described as being “close to the hardware.” Because of the close relationship between the language and the hardware architecture programs written in low-level languages tend to be relatively non-portable. Low-level languages can convert to machine code without a compiler or interpreter. A program written in a low-level language can be made to run very quickly, with a small memory footprint.


2.17: Simulation- Ice Cream Magnate
Try It
Now that you’ve learned about the marketing mix and how it works, it’s time to give it a try yourself.
The simulation below gives you a chance to take a “great business idea”—in this case, ice cream —and play around with the four Ps of marketing.
Try the simulation a few times to see how different choices lead to different outcomes. In a simulation it’s good try out choices you think are right, as well as those you suspect are wrong, since you can learn from both. All simulations allow unlimited attempts so you can gain experience exploring and applying the concepts.
Contributors and Attributions
- Ice Cream Magnate. Authored by : Clark Aldrich. Revisions by Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution


1.15: Explanatory Virtue and Truth
Whenever we investigate anything—black holes or the causes of the First World War or the demography of the Cayman Islands or the ambiguity of Yeats’s poetry—our intrinsic goal is to find the truth about something. If we did not have that goal, we would not be inquiring.
—RONALD DWORKIN1
Two Huge Problems
David H. Glass clearly articulates the two biggest challenges inference to the best explanation:
Despite its intuitive plausibility, IBE faces two key challenges. First, how exactly is IBE to be understood and made precise? There are various conceptions of the nature of explanation, but assuming some of these are suitable for IBE this still leaves the question as to how one explanation should be compared against another so that the best explanation can be identified. Second, what is the connection between explanation and truth? Is there any reason for thinking that the best explanation is likely to be true? Or to put it another way, does IBE track truth? Of course, no approach should be expected to lead to the truth in every instance, but if IBE is to be accepted as a rational mode of inference, there must be some reason for thinking that it provides a good strategy for determining the truth. 2
Inference to the best narrative (IBN) inherits these same problems. How should one narrative be compared against another so that the best narrative can be identified? And is there any reason for thinking that the best narrative is likely to be true? Does it provide a good strategy for determining the truth? But inference to the best narrative invites a third challenge. Does it even make sense to talk about truth in contexts involving violent ex-husbands or constitutional success or failure? All three of these challenges must be addressed, if not definitively answered.
Gilbert Harman foresaw Glass’s first challenge in his initial treatment of inference to the best explanation.
There is, of course, a problem about how one is to judge that one hypothesis is sufficiently better than another hypothesis. Presumably such a judgment will be based on considerations such as which hypothesis is simpler, which is more plausible, which explains more, which is less ad hoc, and so forth. I do not wish to deny that there is a problem about explaining the exact nature of these considerations; I will not, however, say anything more about this problem. 3
One might ask why is there is any problem in the first place. Harman seems to answer his own question about explanatory virtue. The best explanation must be determined by the standards of simplicity, plausibility, completeness, and not being ad hoc. The superficial answer is obvious. His list of explanatory virtues is incomplete (“and so forth”), the virtues can work against one another—the simplest account may not be the most complete—and each one is vague and overly general. Just as with inference to the best explanation, we face the obvious question of what are the criteria for one narrative to be better than another.  The better narrative will be the one that best exemplifies the following characteristics:
- It will tend to provide the most complete story.
- It will tend to provide the simplest story.
- It will provide the most plausible story.
- It will provide the least ad hoc story.
But fleshing out these criteria for explanatory and narrative success is clearly unfinished business in the philosophy of science and narratology.
As serious as this problem clearly is, I don’t believe that it is as serious as the skeptics make it out to be. I know how to speak, understand, read, and write English. I know that the English sentence “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously,” though nonsensical and probably self-contradictory, is grammatically correct. According to a dominant tradition in Western epistemology, if I am right about my linguistic skills, I should be able to plainly articulate the rules I have used to recognize the grammatically of the green ideas sentence.
Obviously, every speaker of a language has mastered and internalized a generative grammar that expresses his knowledge of his language. This is not to say that he is aware of the rules of the grammar or even that he can become aware of them. 4
Chomsky concedes that the rules of this generative grammar may be cognitively inaccessible and certainly difficult to articulate. Jason Stanley vigorously demurs:
Knowing how to do something is the same as knowing a fact. It follows that learning how to do something is learning a fact. For example, when you learned how to swim, what happened is that you learned some facts about swimming. . . . You know how to perform activities solely in virtue of your knowledge of facts about those activities. 5
Socrates clearly articulated this epistemological principle 2,500 years ago—“and that which we know we must surely be able to tell.”6
I side, however, with Michael Polanyi when he says, “We can know more than we can tell.”7 He uses a very apt example:
This fact seems obvious enough; but it is not easy to say exactly what it means. Take an example. We know a person’s face, and can recognize it among a thousand, indeed among a million. Yet we usually cannot tell how we recognize a face we know. So most of this knowledge cannot be put into words. 8
Polanyi introduces the technical term tacit knowledge to label knowledge or skills that “cannot be put into words.” Polanyi is surely engaging in purposeful hyperbole. Most skills can be put into words, but these words are usually vague and general, and at times, the words are downright misleading.
The essence of Glass’s first problem—“how one explanation should be compared against another so that the best explanation can be identified”—is that most of the defenders and critics of inference to the best explanation seem to seek something that I believe is unattainable. They seem to be searching for a kind of mechanical algorithm that validates an objective determination of one explanation being superior to another explanation. Perhaps the biggest temptation for insisting on a list of necessary and sufficient conditions for being the best explanation or story (or a better explanation or story) is the persistent illusion that all things we are skilled at can be articulated in clear, concise recipes or formulae. This is precisely the Plato and Stanley article of faith—“that which we know we must surely be able to tell.” We should know that is a mistake.
Consider how remarkable it is that major league hitters can hit ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastballs.
A typical major league fastball travels about 10 feet in just the 75 milliseconds that it takes for sensory cells in the retina to confirm that a baseball is in view and for information about the flight path and velocity of the ball to be relayed to the brain. The entire flight of the baseball from the pitcher’s hand to the plate takes just 400 milliseconds. And because it takes half that time merely to initiate muscular action, a major league batter has to know where he is swinging shortly after the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand—well before it’s even halfway to the plate. . . . A batter could just as well close his eyes once the ball is halfway to home plate. Given the speed of the pitch and the limitations of our physiology, it seems to be a miracle that anybody hits the ball at all. 9
So how do they do it? There are the clichés—“Keep your eye on the ball,” “Don’t open up too soon,” and the like. But these don’t tell you how it’s done; they are mnemonics to help skilled hitters get back on track when they are in slumps. No one has yet, and I insist never will, articulate the logical criteria for hitting major league fastballs. This emphatically does not mean, however, that the hitting, not the describing, can’t be done. This skill, like many others, is a kind of tacit knowledge.
My mentor, Larry Wright, tells an important story:
Virtually everyone who has survived past infancy has a more or less well developed set of perceptual skills. These skills may be generally described as the ability to tell what’s going on (sometimes) simply by seeing it . . . This ability to tell what’s going on—or what’s gone on—even when we are not confronting it directly. We can often tell what has happened from the traces it leaves. We can tell there was a frost by the damaged trees; we know it rained because the mountains are green; we can tell John had some trouble on the way home from the store by the rumpled fender and the broken headlight. We reconstruct the event from its telltale consequences. It is this diagnostic skill we exploit in the most basic sort of inductive arguments; it is the foundation of our ability to evaluate evidence. 10
This quasi-perceptual skill is what allows us to see what’s going on and what’s true or at least what’s the best bet given what we know. And the fact that the precise nature of this skill has proven incredibly difficult to articulate in no way counts against its existence and utility. Can anyone seriously doubt that Pete Rose knew how to hit because he could not say how he was able to hit?
Literary Darwinism
Wright talks of a “diagnostic skill,” “the ability to tell what’s going on.” I’d characterize it as a skill at making sense of things . What is the source of this skill? The answer to this question leads us directly to Glass’s second worry—“Does IBE track truth?” I am committed, of course, to a resounding affirmative answer. But I certainly owe the inference-to-the-best-explanation and inference-to-the-best-narrative skeptics at least an outline of “some reason for thinking that it provides a good strategy for determining the truth.”
What is sometimes called literary Darwinism traces human storytelling back to evolutionary origins of modern human cognition.
Minds exist to predict what will happen next. They mine the present for clues they can refine with help from the past—the evolutionary past of the species, the cultural past of the population, and the experiential past of the individual—to anticipate the immediate future and guide action. To understand events as they happen, with limited time, knowledge, and computational power, minds have evolved to register the regularities pertinent to particular species and infer according to rough-and-ready heuristics. 11
This little narrative assumes that we are pretty good at “predict[ing] what will happen next.” But it explains much more than the ubiquity of human storytelling; it accounts for our general ability to make sense of things, to explain what’s going on.
We can tell stories to explain things, from a child’s or a country’s pouty “ They started it” to why the world is as it is according to myth or science. . . . Why has the richest explanatory story of all, the theory of evolution by natural selection, been so little used to explain why and how stories matter? 12
Inference to the best explanation (IBE) and inference to the best narrative (IBN) track the truth because they rely, at base, on quasi-perceptual skills that were selected for precisely to do this job.
Consider this explanatory narrative:
Babies may have little control over their bodies, but they can willingly move their heads and eyes. And what a baby looks at can tell you something about how it sees the world. This is because babies are like adults in some regards. If they see the same thing over and over again, they get bored and look away. If they see something new or unexpected, they look longer. Thus, analyzing looking time can tell what babies think of as being “the same thing,” and what they see as “new or unexpected.” 13
The above two-stage inference to the best explanation—differential gaze times being explained as boredom or surprise and then as “same” or “new”—is the methodological presupposition for a host of fascinating experiments in the study of infant cognitive development. Paul Bloom provides a nice summary of some of these results:
- 1.
- 2. Continuity: Imagine a stage with two vertical barriers separated in space. A small object, like a box, goes behind the barrier on the left, continues between the barriers, goes behind the barrier on the right, and comes out the other side. Adults see this is a single object, and so do babies. Now imagine that a box goes behind the barrier on the left, there is a pause, and then the box emerges for the screen on the right, never appearing in the gap. Adults assume there are two boxes here, not one. Babies make the same assumption; they expect continuity.14
Why do we find differential gaze times for the hand pulling the object and it remaining whole, and the hand pulling the object and it coming off in pieces? Babies expect objects to be cohesive. Why the perception of a single box in the first experimental scenario with the box and the barriers but the perception of two boxes in the second scenario? Babies expect continuity. But where do these expectations come from? Bloom’s answer is a classic blend of nature and nurture.
These results show that although babies enter the world with a foundational understanding of what objects are and how they act, it is incomplete, and this foundation grows. Some of the improvement might be due to maturation of the brain—like the rest of the body, the brain changes rapidly in the early years of life, and this might cause corresponding increases in knowledge. But some of the improvement is plainly due to experience.” 15
And finally, what explains this foundational understanding of objects and how they act? This knowledge is clearly innate. Natural selection has hardwired infant brains to expect cohesion and continuity. It is easy to see the adaptive value for human infants having rudimentary understanding not just of objects and “folk physics” but also of agency and social relationships. Certainly, shared understanding of folk physics, agency, and social relationships are the cornerstones of the sort of the practical explanatory skill that would have been of value in hunter-gather times.
Sally and Ann
Let me tell you two stories about Sally and Ann. Sally prizes her special marble. When she leaves, she always places it in a basket and carefully covers it with a soft blanket. Ann has been hiding and watching Sally’s little ritual. After Sally has gone home for lunch, Ann removes Sally’s marble from under the blanket and hides it in a nearby box. Sally returns after lunch and goes to retrieve her marble. She goes right to the box and finds it there! Why? Well, because that’s where the marble is! The second story begins just as the first, but things take a turn when Sally returns from lunch. Sally goes straight for the basket and is heartbroken not to find her marble under the blanket. Why does she do this? Well, that’s where she remembers putting it before lunch.
When shown a puppet version of the beginning of the Sally and Ann stories and then asked to predict where Sally will go to look for her marble, children younger than around four typically predict the box because they know that’s where the marble is. But between four and five, children’s predictions dramatically change. They now realize that Sally will look in the basket because that’s where she would remember putting it.
Why do the more cognitively mature children simply recognize that the Sally-goes-to-the-basket narrative is significantly better than the Sally-goes-to-the-box account? They have begun to develop what is often called a “theory of mind.”
Theory of mind allows a much more precise and multiperspectival understanding of social event. Because we understand beliefs as the basis for forming desires, goals and intentions, and because we understand the sources of belief, we automatically and effortlessly track what other might know about a situation and can therefore understand their behavior more finely. . . . Almost automatically we track what others can know, and that makes all the difference to our capacity to cooperate or compete. 16
Even back in hunter-gather times, our human ancestors were very skilled social explainers. Contemporary cognitive science provides a very plausible account of the origins of this skill.
[Mind reading] is used by cognitive scientists, interchangeably with “Theory of Mind,” to describe our ability to explain people’s behavior in terms of their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires. . . . This adaption must have developed during the “massive neurocognitive evolution” which took place during the Pleistocene (1.8 million to 10,000 years ago). The emergence of a Theory of Mind “module” was evolution’s answer to the “staggeringly complex challenge faced by our ancestors, who needed to make sense of the behavior of other people in their group, which could include up to 200 individuals.” 17
If this is right, and I certainly think it is, it suggests a somewhat surprising inversion in our thinking about explanation. Rather than extrapolating from the more “basic” notion of a causal explanation to account for our narrative skills, it might actually be that our ability to construct narratives about the behavior and motives of those in our social groups is what leads to the wider ability to construct scientific or causal narratives in situations where agents are conspicuously absent.
Disagreement
But wait a second you may well counter. How can I possibly claim that our skills, both innate and learned, at explaining and making sense of things, are reliable enough foundation for a general logical procedure such as inference to the best explanation or inference to the best narrative? Clearly rival explanations and rival narratives are not just possible but strongly endorsed by equally intelligent and reflective evidence assessors. The district attorney and Abe held dramatically different interpretations regarding Hamilton and the murder. I believe Mary Ann and Wanda should have placed more confidence in the criminal justice system and not murdered Earl; the ladies saw things very differently. Intellectual disagreement seems to count heavily against my claims for explanatory and narrative skill. How can Justice Blackmun and Justice Scalia be skilled constitutional explainers and story judgers when they see things so dramatically differently with respect to the death penalty and the Constitution? These worries are legitimate and require attention and potential solutions.
A big part of the story to be told here is one of simple intellectual modesty. One can be very skilled at something and at the same time fail spectacularly at exercising the skill. We are all skilled at recognizing faces. But we still misperceive all the time—“Hi Joanie! Oh, sorry, you look just like my mother-in-law.” Major league hitters perform the minor miracle of hitting ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastballs, but they also swing wildly, miss, and look foolish, and lest we forget, they fail to get base hits between two-thirds and three-quarters of the time. Furthermore, the skills that I am basing my argument upon were developed, honed, and tested in hunter-gatherer times. They can only be applied to science and the law by extension.
Humans do not readily engage in [the highly abstract reasoning required in modern science, philosophy, government, commerce, and law]. In most times, places, and stages of development consists of quantities “one,” “two,” and “many” . . . Their political philosophy is based on kin, clan, tribe and vendetta, not on the social contract. . . . And their morality is a mixture of intuitions of purity, authority, loyalty, conformity, and reciprocity, not generalized notions of fairness and justice . . . Nevertheless, some humans were able to invent the different components of modern knowledge, and all are capable of learning them. 18
Please don’t misread my meaning here. I’m really good at spotting my mother-in-law, I’m in awe of the hitting prowess of the guys on my fantasy team, and as a teacher, I know firsthand that students, even the mediocre ones, can cast aside kin, clan, and vendetta and learn to embrace the social contract and justice and fairness.
Truth
Let’s see if we can do a little better than the trivial definition of “truth” I offered in chapter 3—truth = df not-false. Inference to the best narrative is unapologetic about a close connection between narrative superiority and truth. The best story does not guarantee truth, but it does constitute evidence for what the truth is. Perhaps there is a better yet story that no one has thought to tell—that’s certainly been the case at specific points in the history of science. Perhaps, as I believe is often the case with many narratives, the best story is one that actually combines elements and insights from the competing narratives. But this is the nature of evidence generally. Even the strongest evidence can point in the wrong direction—evidence is not logical proof. But none of this implies that we should disregard evidence. Indeed, what choice do we really have but to base all our considered judgments, not just in law and scholarship, but in every aspect of our lives, on what the best available evidence tells us is likely true?
Legal, constitutional, and scholarly truth, just like truth in science and regarding violent ex-husbands, remains philosophically problematic. I agree with Peter Kosso that the most intuitive sense of truth—at least in most explanatory contexts—is the correspondence theory, but that correspondence must be inferred from coherence.
Though truth is correspondence with the facts it cannot be recognized by its correspondence. We cannot rely on the facts to guide proofs of scientific theories, since the facts are irretrievably at the outer end of the correspondence relation. . . . So any indicators of truth must be internal. . . . The process of justifying, then, is a process of comparing aspects of the system, and the accomplishment of justification is the demonstration of coherence among the aspects. 19
Such a model captures our intuitions about what really happened to Nicole and Ron or at the record hop. There aren’t just stories to be told about these happenings, but clearly, some stories are better than others—stories that point us to the truth. We believe that there’s a world out there, though we will never see it from the God’s eye perspective, and in this world, things happened involving O. J., Connie’s boyfriend, and the rest. These external happenings play a significant role in what counts as true.
Things get much trickier, however, when we consider the best narrative concerning Brown v. Board of Education or Mary Ann and Wanda’s predicament. We are still confident that there is a best story or, at least, stories that are significantly better than others. But where does narrative superiority now point? What of the standard jurisprudential questions of how to interpret a statute, a line of precedent, or a constitutional text? Or even how to interpret the sad events confronting Mary Ann and Wanda? To reiterate the previous argument, I claim that in these cases we tell stories that try to make sense of the relevant texts and precedent as well as Earl’s violent behavior and Geneva’s story about Brown . When we tell these stories, we tell them with passion and conviction. We are convinced that our story is the best or, at least, a heck of a lot better than the other stories that are out there. Does inference to the best narrative not so much discover the truth but actually create the truth? This would be a mischaracterized insight. The insight, of course, is that few of us believe there is a Platonic heaven where moral and interpretive truth live and to where we can retreat to adjudicate controversies involving Earl’s murder or how we should understand Brown v. Board of Education . But it is mischaracterized because truth is not being created in the way Derrick Bell was able to make up his story about the disappearing black schoolchildren. It makes perfectly good sense to insist that there is an “objectively” best narrative, even when reasonable people disagree about what it is. And what other laudatory title would we bestow on such a superior narrative other than “true”?
EXERCISES
- 1. How can a major league hitter possibly hit a ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastball if he can’t say how he does it?
- 2. What do the two Sally and Ann stories tell us about our ability to make sense of what others do?
- 3. Is there an objective truth about what happened to Hamilton’s partner? Is there an objective truth about what Mary Ann and Wanda should do? What does all this say about the notion of truth in the first place?
QUIZ FIFTEEN
What are the two problems for inference to the best explanation (and for inference to the best narrative) that were identified by David H. Glass? What is my proposed solution to these two problems? Do you think my solution works? Why, or why not?
Notes
1. Ronald Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 152.
2. David H. Glass, “Inference to the Best Explanation: Does It Track Truth?,” Synthese: An International Journal for Epistemology, Methodology and Philosophy of Science 185, no. 3 (2012): 411–27.
3. Gilbert Harman, “The Inference to the Best Explanation,” Philosophical Review 74, no.1 (1965): 88–89.
4. Noam Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1956), 8.
5. Jason Stanley, Know How (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), vii.
6. Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 133.
7. Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 4.
8. Polanyi, 4.
9. David Epstein, The Sports Gene (New York: Penguin, 2013), 4.
10. Larry Wright, Better Reasoning (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1982), v.
11. Brian Boyd, On the Origin of Stories (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 134.
12. Boyd, 1.
13. Paul Bloom, Descartes’ Baby (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 9–10.
14. Bloom, 11–12.
15. Bloom, 13–14.
16. Boyd, Origin of Stories , 149.
17. Lisa Zunshine, Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel (Columbus: Ohio University Press, 2006), 7.
18. Steven Pinker, Language, Cognition, and Human Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 359.
19. Peter Kosso, Reading the Book of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 136.


11.4: Anatomy of the Lymphatic and Immune Systems
Anatomy of the Lymphatic and Immune Systems
The lymphatic system (lĭmf-ă-TĬK sĭs-tŭm) is the system of vessels, cells, and organs that transports fluid called lymph to the bloodstream and also filters pathogens from the blood. The immune system (ĭ-MŪN SĬS-tĕm) is the complex collection of cells and organs that destroys or neutralizes pathogens that would otherwise cause infection, disease, or death. The lymphatic system, for most people, is associated with the immune system to such a degree that the two systems are virtually indistinguishable. [1]
Lymph Vessels
Lymph capillaries are interlaced in interstitial space (in-tĕr-STISH-ăl spās), the space between individual cells in the tissues. Interstitial fluid enters the lymphatic capillaries and becomes lymph. Lymph (limf) is a clear-to-white fluid that transports immune system cells, as well as dietary lipids and fat-soluble vitamins absorbed in the small intestine called chyle (kīl). [2] See Figure 11.1 [3] for an image of lymph capillaries.
Lymph capillaries empty into larger lymphatic vessels that become larger and larger until they ultimately empty into the bloodstream at the left and right subclavian veins.
Lymph Nodes
Immune system cells not only use lymphatic vessels to make their way from interstitial space into the circulation, but also use lymph nodes as major staging areas for the development of critical immune responses. Afferent lymphatic vessels (AF-ĕ-rĕnt lim-FAT-ik VES-ĕls) are vessels that lead into a lymph node, and efferent lymphatic vessels (EF-ĕ-rĕnt lim-FAT-ik VES-ĕls) are vessels that lead out of a lymph node. [4]
Lymph nodes (limf nōdz) are small, bean-shaped organs located throughout the lymphatic system. Lymph nodes store immune system cells (B cells and T cells) that help the body fight infection and also filter the lymph fluid to remove foreign material such as bacteria and cancer cells. Lymph nodes are also the sites of adaptive immune responses that are discussed in the “Physiology of the Lymphatic and Immune Systems.”
Lymph travels through the lymph nodes near the groin, armpits, neck, chest, and abdomen. Humans have about 500–600 lymph nodes throughout the body. [5] See Figure 11.2 [6] for an illustration of lymph vessels and nodes.
A major distinction between the lymphatic and cardiovascular systems is that lymph is not actively pumped by the heart but is forced through the vessels by the contraction of skeletal muscles during body movements and breathing. One-way valves in lymphatic vessels keep the lymph moving toward the heart. [7]
When the lymphatic system is damaged in some way, such as by being blocked by cancer cells or destroyed by injury, lymph “backs up” from the lymph vessels into interstitial spaces. This inappropriate accumulation of fluid, referred to as lymphedema (limf-e-DĒ-ma), can cause serious medical consequences.
Primary Lymphoid Organs: Bone Marrow and Thymus
The primary lymphoid organs are the bone marrow and thymus gland. The lymphoid organs are where lymphocytes mature, proliferate, and are selected to attack pathogens.
A lymphocyte (lim-fa- SĪT) is a type of white blood cell that fights infection. There are two main types of lymphocytes: B cells and T cells. B cells (B sĕls) produce antibodies that are used to attack invading bacteria, viruses, and toxins. Recall that all blood cells, including lymphocytes, are formed in the red bone marrow. The B cell undergoes nearly all of its development in the bone marrow, whereas the immature T cell, called a thymocyte, leaves the bone marrow and matures in the thymus gland. The thymus gland (THĪ-mŭs gland) is an organ found in the space between the sternum and the aorta of the heart (refer to Figure 11.2). [9]
Secondary Lymphoid Organs
Lymphocytes develop and mature in the primary lymphoid organs, but they mount immune responses from the secondary lymphoid organs. Secondary lymphoid organs include the spleen, tonsils, and lymph nodes. [10]
Spleen
The spleen (splēn) is sometimes called the “filter of the blood.” As discussed in the “Anatomy of the Hematology System” in the “Blood Terminology” chapter, the spleen stores and filters red blood cells and also produces white blood cells and antibodies to fight infection.
Tonsils
The tonsils (TON-sĭls) are lymphoid nodules located along the inner surface of the pharynx (throat) and are important in developing immunity to oral pathogens. There are five tonsils, including the pharyngeal tonsil (also called the adenoid) located behind the nasal cavity in the nasopharynx, two palatine tonsils located at the back of the mouth in the oropharynx, and two lingual tonsils attached to the tongue. See Figure 11.3 [11] for an illustration of the palatine tonsils. Swelling or enlargement of the tonsils is an indication of an active immune response to infection. A major function of tonsils is to help children’s bodies recognize, destroy, and develop immunity to common environmental pathogens so that they will be protected in their later lives. However, tonsils are often removed for individuals who have recurring throat infections because swollen tonsils can interfere with breathing and/or swallowing. [12]
- This work is a derivative of Open Stax Anatomy and Physiology 2e at https://openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology-2e/pages/21-1-anatomy-of-the-lymphatic-and-immune-systems ↵
- This work is a derivative of Anatomy and Physiology by OpenStax licensed under CC BY 4.0. Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology/pages/1-introduction ↵
- “ 2202_Lymphatic_Capillaries.jpg ” by OpenStax College is licensed under CC BY 3.0 ↵
- This work is a derivative of Anatomy and Physiology by OpenStax licensed under CC BY 4.0. Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology/pages/1-introduction ↵
- This work is a derivative of Anatomy and Physiology by OpenStax licensed under CC BY 4.0. Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology/pages/1-introduction ↵
- “lymphaticimage-972x1024.jpg” by J. Gordon Betts, et al. is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology/pages/1-introduction ↵
- This work is a derivative of Anatomy and Physiology by OpenStax licensed under CC BY 4.0. Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology/pages/1-introduction ↵
- National Human Genome Research Institute. (2023, November 6). Lymphocyte . https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Lymphocyte ↵
- This work is a derivative of Anatomy and Physiology by OpenStax licensed under CC BY 4.0. Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology/pages/1-introduction ↵
- This work is a derivative of Anatomy and Physiology by OpenStax licensed under CC BY 4.0. Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology/pages/1-introduction ↵
- “ Throat_with_Tonsils_0011J.jpeg ” by Klem is licensed under CC BY 3.0 ↵
- This work is a derivative of Anatomy and Physiology by OpenStax licensed under CC BY 4.0. Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology/pages/1-introduction ↵


1.8: READ- What is the Summary of Benefits and Coverage Required by the Affordable Care Act?
The Affordable Care Act (ACA)
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), U.S. health insurers and group health plan providers are required to provide a Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC) to consumers.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) provides SBC instructions and templates. The SBC is a document intended to help consumers compare and select health insurance coverage that best meets their needs by providing easy-to-understand language of health plan benefits. The SBC cannot be more than four pages in length and must be printed in 12-point font or larger.
The SBC must include 12 content elements:
1. Uniform definitions of standard insurance terms and medical terms so that consumers may compare health coverage and understand the terms of (or exceptions to) their coverage.
2. A description of the coverage, including cost sharing, for each category of benefits.
3. The exceptions, reductions and limitations of the coverage.
4. The cost-sharing provisions of the coverage, including deductible, co-insurance and co-payment obligations.
5. The renewability and continuation of coverage provisions.
6. Coverage examples.
7. With respect to coverage beginning on or after January 1, 2014, a statement about whether the plan or coverage provides minimum essential coverage and whether the plan's or coverage's share of the total allowed costs of benefits provided under the plan or coverage meets applicable requirements.
8. A statement that the SBC is only a summary and that the plan document, policy, certificate or contract of insurance should be consulted to determine the governing contractual provisions of the coverage.
9. Contact information for questions and obtaining a copy of the plan document or the insurance policy, certificate or contract of insurance (such as a telephone number for customer service and an Internet address for obtaining a copy of the plan document or the insurance policy, certificate or contract of insurance).
10. For plans and issuers that maintain one or more networks of providers, an Internet address (or similar contact information) for obtaining a list of network providers.
11. For plans and issuers that use a formulary in providing prescription drug coverage, an Internet address (or similar contact information) for obtaining information on prescription drug coverage.
12. An Internet address for obtaining the uniform glossary, as well as a contact phone number to obtain a paper copy of the uniform glossary, and a disclosure that paper copies are available.
The SBC must be provided to consumers:
- Enrolling or re-enrolling in health plans beginning on the first day of the open enrollment, including COBRA coverage.
- Newly eligible to enroll on the first day of the plan year.
- During a special enrollment.
- When there are coverage changes or material modifications.
- Upon request.
If the SBC is sent to an address in a county where at least 10 percent of the population is literate in a language other than English, the health insurer or group health plan provider will need to provide language services and notices upon request in the non-English language. Also, all English versions of the SBC must include a statement in the non-English language indicating how to access the language services and copy of the notice. To assist health insurers and group health plan providers with this process, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) provide county data and information on translating these documents to other languages.
The SBC may be provided via hard copy or electronic format (e-mail or posted to a website) upon meeting three conditions: the SBC is accessible, can be received in paper form free of charge upon request and is available on the Internet. The SBC does not replace a Summary Plan Description (SPD) but may referencethe SPD in the footer of the document.
Source: Q&A "What is the Summary of Benefits and Coverage Required by theAffordable Care Act?" Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 2024.


8: Data Sets and Distributions Last updated Save as PDF Page ID 35096 Illustrative Mathematics OpenUp Resources Section 41: Data, Variability, and Statistical Questions 41.1: Got Data? 41.2: Statistical Questions Section 42: Dot Plots and Histograms 42.1: Representing Data Graphically 42.2: Dot Plots 42.3: Using Dot Plots to Answer Statistical Questions 42.4: Interpreting Histograms 42.5: Using Histograms to Answer Statistical Questions 42.6: Describing Distributions on Histograms Section 43: Measures of Center and Variability 43.1: Mean 43.2: Finding and Interpreting the Mean as the Balance Point 43.3: Variability and MAD 43.4: Using Mean and MAD to Make Comparisons Section 44: Median and IQR 44.1: Median 44.2: Comparing Mean and Median 44.3: Quartiles and Interquartile Range 44.4: Box Plots Section 45: Let's Put it to Work 45.1: Using Data to Solve Problems


17.4.3: De novo Lipogenesis (Fatty Acid Synthesis)
De novo in Latin means "from the beginning." Thus, de novo lipogenesis is the synthesis of fatty acids, beginning with acetyl-CoA. Acetyl-CoA has to first move out of the mitochondria, where it is then converted to malonyl-CoA (3 carbons). Malonyl-CoA then is combined with another acetyl-CoA to form a 4 carbon fatty acid (1 carbon is given off as CO 2 ). The addition of 2 carbons is repeated through a similar process 7 times to produce a 16 carbon fatty acid 1 .
Figure 6.331 Fatty acid synthesis 2
Most fatty acids synthesized will be esterified into triglycerides for storage.
References
- Gropper SS, Smith JL, Groff JL. (2008) Advanced nutrition and human metabolism. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.
- en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion


12.11: Why It Matters- Place- Distribution Channels
Why evaluate how to use distribution channels to market an organization’s products and services effectively?
More Than Just Another P
Of the elements in the marketing mix, product and price are perhaps the easiest to understand. We see products all around us, and we understand that we need to pay a specific price to buy them. Promotion is sometimes a little more difficult to grasp, but if we begin with the concept of advertising and then develop a more complete view of promotion from that, promotion is also fairly easy to understand.
“Place,” on the other hand, is not so straightforward. In fact, using the word “place” can be misleading. If I were to say, “We are going to talk about place related to groceries,” you would likely think about where you buy your groceries—as in, which store and which location. In this module, though, we want to discuss the process of determining where you want to find particular groceries and how to get those groceries to that place in the way that best aligns with your preferences.
While it inconveniently begins with the letter D rather than P , distribution is a more accurate description of this function. Distribution brings the products that you want to the place where you want to buy them, at a cost that supports the customer and company price requirements.
How do your groceries get to the right place at the right cost? To explore this question, let’s look at two high-end grocery stores that use very different methods to manage this process: Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.
Whole Foods’ Approach to Distribution
Whole Foods’ motto— Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet —emphasizes a vision that reaches beyond food retailing. The company has chosen a strategy of sourcing locally wherever possible. This, in turn, has driven the strategy of how Whole Foods fills its shelves—the distribution strategy. The video below explains how the company sources products.
You can view the transcript for “Forager Elly Truesdell Whole Foods Market” here (opens in new window).
In order to support local sourcing, store managers are empowered to make purchasing decisions for each store, independently of the regional offices. As a result, it is possible for Whole Foods to buy potatoes from a local farmer who would never dream of selling his produce to a large grocery chain. Essentially, Whole Foods is differentiated because all products are sourced locally. The stores operate under minimal governance and are given maximum freedom to source a product mix that is appropriate for their location. Whole Foods stores operate according to the premise that they need these freedoms to meet the unique buying needs of their local customers. The only governing rule put in place by the corporate office is that stores must not stock products with artificial flavors, preservatives, colors, sweeteners, or hydrogenated oils. A downside to this local purchasing policy is that consistency is compromised across the chain. Every retail location carries a variety of products that distinguishes it from other stores in the same chain.
Not surprisingly, it is difficult to achieve economies of scale with this model. Higher distribution costs lead to higher prices, which makes it important for Whole Foods to target customers with high incomes. To ensure ample access to their target consumer segments, Whole Foods opens stores in communities with a large number of college-educated residents with no fewer than two hundred thousand people within a twenty-minute drive.
Trader Joe’s Approach to Distribution
The mission of Trader Joe’s is to give customers the best food and beverage values they can find anywhere and to provide them with the information required to make informed buying decisions. The company strives to provide these with a dedication to the highest quality of customer satisfaction delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, fun, individual pride, and company spirit.
At the core of the Trader Joe’s “way” is a focus on cost control, simplicity, and fun. These company objectives are woven throughout each aspect of the business. Trader Joe’s aims to create a truly unique customer experience, offering high-quality gourmet foods at a low cost in a fun environment that keeps customers coming back for more.
Trader Joe’s manages its distribution networks by minimizing the number of hands that touch the product, thereby reducing costs and making products quickly available to their customers. The company orders directly from the manufacturer. The manufacturer, in turn, is responsible for bringing the product to a Trader Joe’s distribution center. At the distribution center, trucks leave on daily resupply trips to local stores. Because the stores are relatively small, there is little room for excess inventory, and orders from distribution centers need to be incredibly precise.
This quick and efficient distribution process is directly responsible for helping the company identify where to locate new retail stores. Trader Joe’s will only enter markets where the region has a distribution infrastructure that allows it to efficiently resupply products to stores. They have not opened stores in Florida or Texas—both large, lucrative markets—because the distribution networks are not yet strong enough to support their strategy. [1] [2]
Trader Joe’s strategy of implementing a low-cost and efficient distribution network has contributed to the democratization of gourmet foods by making them more readily available to customers at all income levels.
You can see that the distribution strategy for each company has an effect on where they open stores, how they price their products, which customers will buy, and who will have access to gourmet foods.
In this module, you’ll learn more about distribution strategies and their role in the marketing mix.
Learning Outcomes
- Explain what channels of distribution are and why organizations use them
- Explain how channels affect the marketing of products and services
- Describe types of retailers and explain how they are used as a channel of distribution
- Explain how integrated supply chain management supports an effective distribution strategy
- Lewis, Len. The Trader Joe’s Adventure: Turning a Unique Approach to Business to a Retail and Cultural Phenomenon. 2005 ↵
- www.traderjoes.com/our-story/timeline ↵
Contributors and Attributions
- Why It Matters: Place: Distribution Channels. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- Trader Joe's vs. Whole Foods Market: A Comparison of Operational Management. Provided by : MIT Sloan School. Located at : http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-768-management-of-services-concepts-design-and-delivery-fall-2010/projects/MIT15_768F10_paper05.pdf . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
- Video: Forager, Elly Truesell, Whole Foods Market. Provided by : WholeFoodsMarket. Located at : https://youtu.be/vgpugYqyKBM . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License


7.4: Writing for Success- Cause and Effect
This section will help you determine the purpose and structure of cause and effect in writing.
The Purpose of Cause and Effect in Writing
It is often considered human nature to ask, “why?” and “how?” We want to know how our child got sick so we can better prevent it from happening in the future, or why a colleague received a pay raise because we want one as well. We want to know how much money we will save over the long term if we buy a hybrid car, or how long we will live if we exercise daily. These examples identify only a few of the relationships we think about in our lives, but each shows the importance of understanding cause and effect.
A cause is something that produces an event or condition; an effect is what results from an event or condition. The purpose of the cause-and-effect essay is to determine how various phenomena relate in terms of origins and results. Sometimes the connection between cause and effect is clear, but often determining the exact relationship between the two is very difficult. For example, the following effects of a cold may be easily identifiable: a sore throat, runny nose, and a cough. But determining the cause of the sickness can be far more difficult. A number of causes are possible, and to complicate matters, these possible causes could have combined to cause the sickness. That is, more than one cause may be responsible for any given effect. Therefore, cause-and-effect discussions are often complicated and frequently lead to debates and arguments.
Use the complex nature of cause and effect to your advantage. Often it is not necessary, or even possible, to find the exact cause of an event or to name the exact effect. So, when formulating a thesis, you can claim one of a number of causes or effects to be the primary, or main, cause or effect. As soon as you claim that one cause or one effect is more crucial than the others, you have developed a thesis.
The Structure of a Cause and Effect Essay
The cause-and-effect essay opens with a general introduction to the topic, which then leads to a thesis that states the main cause, main effect, or various causes and effects of a condition or event.
The cause-and-effect essay can be organized in one of the following two primary ways:
- Start with the cause and then talk about the effects.
- Start with the effect and then talk about the causes.
For example, if your essay were on childhood obesity, you could start by talking about the effect of childhood obesity and then discuss the cause or you could start the same essay by talking about the cause of childhood obesity and then move to the effect.
Regardless of which structure you choose, be sure to explain each element of the essay fully and completely. Explaining complex relationships requires the full use of evidence, such as scientific studies, expert testimony, statistics, and anecdotes.
Because cause-and-effect essays determine how phenomena are linked, they make frequent use of certain words and phrases that denote such linkage. Certain transitional words and phrases aid in keeping the reader oriented in the sequencing of a story. Some of these phrases are listed here:
| as a result | consequently |
| because | due to |
| hence | since |
| thus | therefore |
The conclusion should wrap up the discussion and reinforce the thesis, leaving the reader with a clear understanding of the relationship that was analyzed.
Be careful of resorting to empty speculation. In writing, speculation amounts to unsubstantiated guessing. Writers are particularly prone to such trappings in cause-and-effect arguments due to the complex nature of finding links between phenomena. Be sure to have clear evidence to support the claims that you make.
Writing an Cause and Effect Essay
Choose an event or condition that you think has an interesting cause-and-effect relationship. Introduce your topic in an engaging way. End your introduction with a thesis that states the main cause, the main effect, or both.
Organize your essay by starting with either the cause-then-effect structure or the effect-then-cause structure. Within each section, you should clearly explain and support the causes and effects using a full range of evidence. If you are writing about multiple causes or multiple effects, you may choose to sequence either in terms of order of importance. In other words, order the causes from least to most important (or vice versa), or order the effects from least important to most important (or vice versa).
Use the phrases of causation when trying to forge connections between various events or conditions. This will help organize your ideas and orient the reader. End your essay with a conclusion that summarizes your main points and reinforces your thesis.
Effects of Video Game Addiction
By Scott McLean
Video game addition is a serious problem in many parts of the world today and deserves more attention. It is no secret that children and adults in many countries throughout the world, including Japan, China, and the United States, play video games every day. Most players are able to limit their usage in ways that do not interfere with their daily lives, but many others have developed an addiction to playing video games and suffer detrimental effects.
An addiction can be described in several ways, but generally speaking, addictions involve unhealthy attractions to substances or activities that ultimately disrupt the ability of a person to keep up with regular daily responsibilities. Video game addiction typically involves playing games uncontrollably for many hours at a time—some people will play only four hours at a time while others cannot stop for over twenty-four hours. Regardless of the severity of the addiction, many of the same effects will be experienced by all.
One common effect of video game addiction is isolation and withdrawal from social experiences. Video game players often hide in their homes or in Internet cafés for days at a time—only reemerging for the most pressing tasks and necessities. The effect of this isolation can lead to a breakdown of communication skills and often a loss in socialization. While it is true that many games, especially massive multiplayer online games, involve a very real form of e-based communication and coordination with others, and these virtual interactions often result in real communities that can be healthy for the players, these communities and forms of communication rarely translate to the types of valuable social interaction that humans need to maintain typical social functioning. As a result, the social networking in these online games often gives the users the impression that they are interacting socially, while their true social lives and personal relations may suffer.
Another unfortunate product of the isolation that often accompanies video game addiction is the disruption of the user’s career. While many players manage to enjoy video games and still hold their jobs without problems, others experience challenges at their workplace. Some may only experience warnings or demerits as a result of poorer performance, or others may end up losing their jobs altogether. Playing video games for extended periods of time often involves sleep deprivation, and this tends to carry over to the workplace, reducing production and causing habitual tardiness.
Video game addiction may result in a decline in overall health and hygiene. Players who interact with video games for such significant amounts of time can go an entire day without eating and even longer without basic hygiene tasks, such as using the restroom or bathing. The effects of this behavior pose significant danger to their overall health.
The causes of video game addiction are complex and can vary greatly, but the effects have the potential to be severe. Playing video games can and should be a fun activity for all to enjoy. But just like everything else, the amount of time one spends playing video games needs to be balanced with personal and social responsibilities.
- The purpose of the cause-and-effect essay is to determine how various phenomena are related.
- The thesis states what the writer sees as the main cause, main effect, or various causes and effects of a condition or event.
- The cause-and-effect essay can be organized in one of these two primary ways:
- Start with the cause and then talk about the effect.
- Start with the effect and then talk about the cause.
- Strong evidence is particularly important in the cause-and-effect essay due to the complexity of determining connections between phenomena.
- Phrases of causation are helpful in signaling links between various elements in the essay.